Climategate really is the greatest scientific scandal of all time

Shortly after the Climategate scandal broke and I'd had a chance to go through the documents released I described it as the greatest scientific scandal of all time.

Worse than Piltdown Man (which was a corker) or Hwang to name just a couple of famous ones.

The Climate Taliban have been in denial about what Climategate means and the defensive lines seems to be that, yes, mistakes were made but it doesn't undermine the overall scientific support for the climate change thesis.

The scientist at the centre of Climategate is Phil Jones. He had such credibility within the climate community that he was a contributing author to Chapter 12, Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes, of the Third Assessment Report (2001) and a Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 3, Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change, of the Fourth Assessment Report (2007).

In this latter role Jones wielded a lot of power and had the ability to control the direction of the report.

So his credibility matters. A lot.

Now it has come out that not only did his climate group at the University of East Anglia 'hide the decline' in the post 1960 'spaghetti graph' of temperature that is pervasive throughout climate literature but they also manipulated the starting point of the series in order to eradicate an inconvenient result - in pink below - as demonstrated by the one man climate science truth finder, Steve McIntyre:



How amazing is that?

What sort of scientist goes to work knowing that what they're putting forward is a complete fraud?

If Phil Jones can't be honest with what his own team is putting forward then how can we trust anything he's allowed into the Fourth Assessment Report?

More importantly, how could it survive peer review? Aren't we repeatedly told that peer review in climate science is beyond reproach? If that's really the case then why do so many critical errors and fabrications continue to be discovered? It's as if the peer review process is either a sham or is carried out be people who accept the science and don't look too hard.

I have a theory that climate science has attracted a large number of mediocre scientists over the years simply because there's a lot of funding to be had and, critically, there's no demand to prove what they're doing is true. How else can climate models have a zero percent prediction rate yet the people who create them are held in high regard within the climate community? There is so little scientific skill that scientists simply trust each other's work.

The worst part is that the mainstream media will completely ignore yet another piece of proof that climate science is a corrupt, inaccurate discipline that has been taken over by scientific hacks seeking money and prestige, and environmental activists wanting to use it for political advantage.

(Nothing Follows)

Today's Jesus Wept Story...

Looking for an indicator that there is a large percentage of the population that learned nothing in school, knows no history and is unable to assess risk?

Check out the current result of today's ninemsn poll:



Here's a brief pictorial reminder:

Nuclear War



Climate Change



Can someone please explain to me how it is possible that 25% of respondents think that climate change is worse than nuclear war...?

Here's another question.

Which side of politics do you think the 'no' voters predominately represent? And why? And shouldn't that side be thoroughly ashamed of itself?

UPDATE:

The 25% of Australian respondents to the ninemsn poll have soulmates in the US...

Just 30% of U.S. voters have at least some confidence in the ability of the United Nations to combat terrorism, with nine percent (9%) who are very confident.

But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that more than twice as many voters (68%) lack confidence in the U.N. to deal with the threat of terrorism. Thirty-nine percent (39%) describe themselves as not very confident, and another 29% are not at all confident.

The United Nations has NO DESCRIPTION OF TERRORISM for crapsake!!!! How the heck are they supposed to fight it???? What are these 30% thinking...????

(Nothing Follows)

Climate Change - Dying but not Dead

Krumhorn reminds me in comments to review the latest nail in the climate astrology coffin being banged in by Steve McIntyre. Namely, the fabrication that is Keith Briffa's Yamal data set.

For the uninitiated, the Yamal tree ring data set is a critical requirement in order to create a temperature Hokey Stick of the type first introduced in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report and made iconic by Al Gore's bullcrap fantasy An Inconvenient Truth.

Climate 'science' is a corpse only being kept alive by those whose noses are stuffed firmly in the trough of public funding.

The divergence between the data available and what Briffa chose to use is not the only divergence in the climate astrology debate.

The greater divergence is between what the science is telling us and what our political masters are doing about it.

On the one hand it is becoming more and more obvious that CO2 has a negligible impact on our climate and that solar influences is doing all of the dirty work while on the other the world's major emitters are pushing the climate hot potato around and proposing more and more expensive solutions hoping to trap their trading partners into having to make concessions.

The Chinese have played a corker of a hand. Forgot the World Poker Tour, these guys out-poker everyone. They've now offered to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of GDP.

Ha! Gotcha, US and Europe!

That means they can simply proceed as per current course and speed while forcing the US and Europe to impose a financial burden that can only work to the benefit of China (and India, Russia, Brazil etc).

Meanwhile, our erstwhile economic wrist slashing politicians here at home continue to bang on about introducing an emissions trading scheme in advance of any decision at Copenhagen.

What a pack of immoral bastards.

It shows how incompetent our opposition is that they can't come up with the morally correct position, which is to explicitly state that they are not going to support the loss of any Australian jobs until the rest of the world has a concrete agreement.

The way things are working out now China, India and Russia etc will get rewarded for having kept their populations in penury for decades due to their socialist governments, as well as pay no price for the use of technology developed by the West.

Excuse me while I work out how to rationalise all that.

(Nothing Follows)

Non-scientist scrutinises real scientist

Computer teacher Tim Lambert has a history of beclowning himself when it comes to analysing those things he disagrees with.

For example, he denies there's a UN ban on DDT and, anyway, even if there isn't then mosquitoes are resistant to it so there's no point using it.

Facts, you see, are not one of Lambert's strong points.

DDT is listed as a persistent organic pollutant by the UN and if a country wants WHO funding then they can only get it if they don't use DDT.

Lambert does not believe this is the case. One of my close relatives was directly involved in the issue, working in Africa and representing the UN. What he told me, and showed me, proves Lambert and other DDT detractors dead wrong. When my relative retires from working and is not subject to the blowback of disclosure then I'll give the details.

Anyhow, Lambert has undertaken to critique Ian Plimer's new book, Heaven and Earth, subjecting it to exactly the sort of scrutiny they should be undertaking on anything produced by Hansen, the Hokey Stick team, Lonnie Thompson and the rest of the useless scientists that support the IPCC's ridiculous position on global warming.

Check out the latest posts:

Ian Plimer lies about source of his figure 3

Ian Enting is checking Plimer's claims

Sales of Heaven and Earth

Reaction to Ashley's review of Plimer

An astronomer reviews Ian Plimer's book

The Australian's War on Science 38: more denial from Ian Plimer

Ian Plimer 'can not recall' where his graph came from

Plimer does the Gish gallop

Ian Plimer and the health effects of mercury poisoning from land mines

The science is missing from Ian Plimer's "Heaven and Earth"

The fact that the left has reacted so violently, and irrationally, to the success of Heaven and Earth demonstrates how worried they are that the so called science supporting their position is about to be exposed for the sham it is.

Lambert is a self professed computer expert and I have no doubt he has a fair bit of skill in that area.

Why doesn't he analyse how climate models are created and why they have a zero percent successful forecasting rate?

That would be the intellectually honest thing to do if he really wanted to make a contribution.

(Nothing Follows)

Professor Plimer presents the real facts on climate change

Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide and confirmed curmudgeon, released his new book Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science only a few days ago. The first two runs of 5000 sold out in just two days and it's into its 3rd run; and that's even before Amazon puts it on sale, which they have scheduled for May 1 - an appropriate day given that the world's socialists and the Climate Faithful are soulmates.

Which begs the question - has there ever been a faster selling book dealing with climate change than Plimer's?

Youtube gets rightly condemned for censoring content showing Israel in a good light and Islam in a bad light, as it should be. Given the preponderence of Democrat Party members on the Google board it comes as no surprise that such activity goes on.

However, without Youtube we also wouldn't have such easy access to the Inconvenient Truth destroying presentation given by Plimer recently. Make sure you show it to all of your believing friends.











One of the arguments that Climate Astrologers put forward to support their claim that the planet is in peril is that "this is different" to what has happened historically due to man's influence.

My answer to that is that if it really is different then why spend all that time studying the climate before the Industrial Revolution?

It's drivel, of course, but as with all leftists they're too busy forming opinions to spend any real time studying facts.

(Nothing Follows)

Average Joe doesn't believe global warming caused by human activity

It comes as a big, huge non-surprise that only 34% of US voters now believe that global warming is caused by human activity.

This will come as a body blow to the credibility of Climate Astrologers, whose public opinion models had suggested that support would continue to grow.

From what I consider to be the best pollster in the US, Rasmussen, comes this survey:

Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.

The Political Class are greater believers than Average Joe? Imagine that. It's clear that Average Joe has a better handle on both the science and reality than politicians.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, while seven percent (7%) blame some other reason. Eleven percent (11%) aren’t sure.

These numbers reflect a reversal from a year ago when 47% blamed human activity while 34% said long-term planetary trends.

Most Democrats (51%) still say humans are to blame for global warming, the position taken by former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change activists. But 66% of Republicans and 47% of adults not affiliated with either party disagree.

I find it astonishing that only 51% of Democrats blame humans for warming. That can't bode well for the support they'll need to push through an emissions trading scheme.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of all Americans believe global warming is at least a somewhat serious problem, with 33% who say it’s Very Serious. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it’s a not a serious problem. The overall numbers have remained largely the same for several months, but the number who say Very Serious has gone down.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Democrats say global warming is a Very Serious problem, compared to 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliateds.

President Obama has made global warming a priority for his administration. Half (49%) of Americans think the president believes climate change is caused primarily by human activity. This is the first time that belief has fallen below 50% since the president took office. Just 19% say Obama attributes global warming to long-term planetary trends.

Forty-eight percent (48%) rate the president good or excellent on energy issues. Thirty-two percent (32%) give him poor grades in this area.

These are hardly strong numbers for Obama.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of adults now say finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing the amount of energy Americans currently consume. However, 29% say energy conservation is the priority.

A growing number of Americans (58%) say the United States needs to build more nuclear plants. This is up five points from last month and the highest finding so far this year. Twenty-five percent (25%) oppose the building of nuclear plants.

One presumes that even though Average Joe doesn't know where the rest of the world is he can understand that if France meets 77% of its electricity requirements through nuclear power then the arguments against it can't be too sound.

While the economy remains the top issue for most Americans, 40% believe there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Thirty-one percent 31% see no such conflict, while 29% are not sure.

There should be no conflict but the fact is that Big Environment makes sure that one exists. They are a cancer on the underbelly of society.

(Nothing Follows)

Chinese lecture Australia on reducing emissions

The Chinese - the Chinese! - are telling us that we need to "take the lead" on slashing our economic wrists by unilaterally implementing an emissions trading scheme. The world's largest CO2 emitters!

Check out the article from Fairfax press (true believers, they are, which comes across in the article):

Chinese climate experts have called on rich nations to rein in their "wasteful and luxurious" lifestyles, as they urged Australia to take the lead in tackling climate change.

The only reason that China does not have a much higher standard of living than the developed world is that in 1949 Chairman Mao was victorious and socialist economic policies ran the place. While Mao was trying to take great leaps forward with the result that tens of millions of people starved to death the West was developing new technologies that provided a much higher standard of living.

The experts asked a Canberra conference why China should take strong action on global warming when Australia's efforts were "insufficient".

That's the question.

China has the world's highest greenhouse gas emissions.

And there's the answer.

Some Australian commentators say China is largely responsible for cleaning up climate change, but Professor Jiahua Pan from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences turned the tables.

So who is this Professor Pan?

According to his bio he works for the Research Centre for Sustainable Development at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and from 1999-2001 was:

Senior Economist and acting head at occasions, Technical Support Unit, Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Co-editor and lead author, Climate Change 2001: Mitigation. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report, accepted by governments and published by Cambridge University Press in July 2001.

So he's simply another one of the IPCC Cabal entrusted by the Chinese government with making sure the finger is pointed at the rest of the world instead of China. Nice.

He said the planet could not afford for countries like Australia and the United States to have such "wasteful and luxurious" lifestyles.

"You have the luxury to emit so much," Prof Pan said during a frank speech at the Australian National University on Wednesday.

In fact, if Kyoto hadn't been such a scam and the concept of life cycle accounting hadn't been knocked on the head (mainly by the Europeans who would have been affected the most at the time) then China would be paying for the emissions that Australia produces in digging minerals out of the ground and sending them to...China.

"For basic necessities, I think that enough is enough ... we have only one small planet earth."

"Basic necessities"? What does that mean? We all get 100g of rice and a fish head to live on each day?

Prof Pan was unimpressed with Australia's environmental standards, saying public transport seemed poor and the buildings and street lighting were not energy efficient.

Australia's largest city - Sydney



China's largest city - Shanghai




If Professor Pan - aka the Chinese government - wants us to reduce our "wasteful and luxurious" lifestyle then is he/are they OK with making our cities' skylines look like China's?

He labelled as "insufficient" Australia's pledge to cut greenhouse emissions by five to 15 per cent by 2020.

The Greenies go wild! Cheering and clapping ensues as Pan tells them what they want to hear...

And he urged Australia to sell more uranium to China to boost nuclear power, a request that is being considered.

...and then he delivers the sucker punch, knocking the econuts for six and exposing the cognitive dissonance of their position on nuclear energy.

Prof Pan talked up China's one-child policy, saying it had helped the planet by avoiding 300 million births.

Now China is claiming that it has actually helped the planet by avoiding 300 million births? The fact that 90% of these births would have been in rural areas and result in the emission of a comparatively tiny amount of CO2 is overlooked.

The Chinese experts called for a global climate pact that would involve each country being allowed to emit a certain amount, based on their populations.

This is ominous for Australia because it has very high per capita emissions, whereas China has fairly low per capita emissions.

Australian climate adviser Ross Garnaut backed the per capita push in a video address to the conference, saying it was fair.

No it's not. It's ridiculous. If we were to be fair then perhaps developed countries would have a limit of say, 100 units, and developing nations could have 200. Developed nations, if fairness has any meaning, could then charge developing nations for the creation of technologies that developing countries are now taking advantage of at no cost to themselves. Developed countries have borne the brunt of this innovation so why is it 'fair' that developing nations get a free ride? It's not. Therefore we all get 150 units - which are not able to be traded so that fat hypocrites like Al Gore and most of Hollywood concernarati can't buy the permits of poor Indians and Chinese - and that's that.

Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who was not present for the Chinese experts' strongly worded remarks, praised the Asian nation's efforts on global warming.

She said Australia's 2020 target was "very substantial".

Senator Wong was cautious about per capita emission allowances, saying it was just one possible approach.

She's no dummy, this Penny Wong lady. Tough, too.

Meanwhile, it was pistols at dawn at Parliament House as scientists clashed over whether humans were causing climate change.

A Senate inquiry held its first hearing into climate change and what Australia should do about it.

The scientists had to be separated into two groups: the sceptics and the believers.

What? Was there the potential for fisticuffs? Dueling sabres? Pistols?

Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, said there was no evidence carbon dioxide from humans was causing a climate disaster.

He said earth was in a period of "carbon dioxide starvation", and the climate was changing naturally.

And he's 100% spot on, as usual.

But six scientists, including a representative from CSIRO, told the hearing that humans were altering the climate. There was plenty of evidence for this, and the vast majority of scientists and scientific academies agreed with the conclusion, they said.

And they're 90% wrong - they've conflated humans altering climate, which land clearing will do, with CO2 emissions, which have little effect. It's worth noting that these people have received massive amounts of money from the people of Australia by way of taxes over the last 20 years and have a vested interest in maintaining the fraud.

They called on Australia to cut emissions by between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020.

Lunacy.

Any less would not ward off dangerous climate change of more than two degrees, they warned.

As I pointed out yesterday, their position is completely immoral, as Australia could take itself back to the stone age and have no effect on its own environment due to China adding Australia's total output 2-3 times per year.

Nationals senator Ron Boswell objected to the call.

"Some of the figures you guys are throwing around, sitting in your professorships, you've probably got $200,000 a year ... you've got to be practical," he said.

"You're going to have an unemployment figure that will go through the roof."

Not the best person to have represent the side of reason and objectivity, I'd suggest, but he's right on unemployment.

Greens senator Christine Milne groaned and held her head in her hands at Senator Boswell's remarks.

Fortunately, misanthropic environut Milne was there to balance things out.

The inquiry continues on Thursday.

What an embarrassment for science and reason.

(Nothing Follows)

The immorality of Climate Do-Gooders

Read this article from The Canberra Times first and then I'll comment:

A group of CSIRO senior climate scientists has defied a gag order by the organisation to speak out on Australia's proposed greenhouse reduction targets.
The four high-profile scientists Michael Raupach, John Church, Pep Canadell and James Risbey have broken ranks with CSIRO to make personal submissions to a Senate inquiry into the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme.

They claim tougher targets are needed to avoid Australia being "locked in" to dangerous climate change, and list 14 recent scientific findings that support their argument.

The rebel scientists cannot comment on their decision because they are public servants. But a CSIRO source said they could risk censure and possible career repercussions by taking such a public stand against the Government's controversial greenhouse reduction targets.

A CSIRO spokesman denied there was a gag on its scientists participating in the inquiry, and said the four were, "welcome to make comment as long as they are not representing CSIRO".

All four CSIRO scientists are world leaders in their various areas of climate research. Dr Raupach co-chairs the Global Carbon project, which oversees international research on the global carbon cycle. Dr Church chairs the scientific committee for the Geneva-based World Climate Research Program, Dr Canadell is executive director of the Global Carbon project and Dr Risbey has been involved in global climate research for more than 20 years.

A CSIRO source told The Canberra Times the group was determined to "present new scientific findings to the Senate inquiry that it believes are crucial to shaping Australia's future greenhouse policies".

The source said the scientists made their decision to go ahead with personal submissions after CSIRO management ruled out any participation in the inquiry by Australia's peak science body on the grounds that it would require comment on government policy.

A CSIRO spokesman said the inquiry's terms of reference, "went to the policy of the Government's carbon pollution reduction scheme, and in line with our public comment policy, we don't comment on government policy".

The scientists had been told to, "make it absolutely clear" they were not speaking on behalf of CSIRO. If asked to testify, they will be required to take formal leave and travel at their own expense.

I have no doubt that Raupach, Church, Canadell and Risbey firmly believe that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will lead to negative effects on the environment. If they didn't then they would hardly 'break ranks' with their employer, CSIRO, to make a submission to the Australian senate inquiry.

Their position is that Australia must ensure that it slashes its CO2 emissions else suffer the negative consequences.

They probably think that they have the moral high ground, being concerned with the environment and all.

The fact is that their position is deeply, deeply immoral.

Not that they would accept that reality.

Let's take the position for the moment that CO2 is the problem to the extent claimed by them and forget about climate models' inability to get within cooee of a correct forecast.

The unilateral imposition of an emission trading scheme in Australia will do untold harm to our economy. Only a complete economic illiterate would fail to appreciate that.

Those just leaving school, the low skilled, new migrants and those at the low end of the socio-economic scale will bear the burden of a unilateral emissions scheme.

Whatever action Australia takes will have NO impact on the environment here. It's up to China, India, Russia and Brazil - the so-called emerging economies - to agree to CO2 reduction programs. Australia is 1.4% of the world's CO2 output. China ADDS that amount every 4-6 months.

Please explain to me Messrs Raupach, Church, Canadell and Risbey how your plans will make one jot of difference?

Thus, they willfully promote the impoverishment of their fellow Australians and to no good end.

If that is not deeply immoral then the term has no meaning.

(Nothing Follows)

Why do I have a Climate Stalker?

I have a comments stalker whose sole task in life seems to be to gainsay any of the science I post demonstrating that climate science is fraudulent and that its adherents have ulterior motives.

Last year I wrote that all anonymous commenters should be referred to as 'fudgie' when people respond to them.

However, one commenter was so prolific in his contribution supporting the pro-AGW argument and so distinctive in his style that I dubbed him big F 'Fudgie'.

I doubt that there was ever one climate change post to which Fudgie did not respond with a counter argument based upon the 'consensus' science of the IPCC and its contributors.

Fudgie had a bit of character, too, and was clearly smart enough even though he was afflicted by the mental condition that sees one end up on the left side of politics.

Fudgie did out himself one day by putting up a comment using what I presume is his real name and then deleting his blogger profile shortly afterwards. Given he had always posted anonymously I didn't see it as my place to refer to his real name even though had I done the same thing on a left wing blog they would have splattered it all over the place with glee. Such is the difference in quality and maturity between those on the left and right.

After a little while I worked out that Fudgie was not just some ordinary citizen concerned for the environment but an activist assigned to my blog by one of the Big E environmental groups to make sure that there was always a counter argument made to the anti-AGW posts I wrote.

If there was one thing that could be said about Fudgie, and it can be said about all of the Climate Faithful, and that is that he never let the facts get in the way of his counter argument.

The pro-AGW methodology followed by Fudgie seemed to be:

1. discount the science because it hasn't been peer-reviewed;
2. attack the scientist for some affiliation or other that isn't currently politically correct (Big Oil, being at a conservative think tank, being Christian etc etc);
3. Cherry pick the data set that best supports their response (i.e. NASA GISS data set shows an higher trend than others due to Climate Lunatic James Hansen's "adjustments");
4. provide links to articles by mainstream climate scientists such as Schmidt, Mann, Tamino etc even though the science in the articles has been well and truly debunked; and/or
5. modify the response to the main argument being made by me by shifting the goal posts.

A classic example of that last point is the Climate Faithfuls' response to the claim that there's been no warming since 2002.

In response to this completely incontrovertible statement they come back with graphs showing a positive trend for the period 2002-current by moving the starting point of the trend back to 1979, which is when satellite data first became available and which was at the tail end of the 1940s-70s cool period, leading to an enhanced positive trend.

For a number of months things were pretty consistent. I'd post a climate change article, Fudgie would jump in all guns blazing, there'd be some back and forth between Fudgie and my commenters and then it would die down after a few days.

And then something odd happened a few months ago.

I, and my merry band of commenters, noticed that Fudgie's tone changed.

He became much more aggressive. He started referring to me as F*cky, which is another example of the quality difference between left and right; the left swears far more (in an article I read recently by some university that had done a study into profanity on the left and right wing blogs their conclusion was that those on the left used profanity at something like a 14:1 ratio compared to those on the right...which surprises nobody on our side of politics). His use of the English language also plummeted from at least a college level education to something that could be written by a 14 year old who only averaged a C in English; and his understanding of the science diminished significantly.

And then it struck me.

I had been assigned a new Fudgie.

So now I ask New Fudgie who he works for when I'm responding in comments. Unsurprisingly, he ignores the question completely and accuses me of not providing a response to whatever scientific blather he has picked out of his backside that particular day to supposedly counter the argument I was making.

Which makes one wonder.

Why is it that a little old blog like mine - hardly one of the mainstream, high visibility blogs - garners such attention from the Climate Taliban that they would assign a stalker?

Readers of other conservative blogs that regularly write about Climate Astrology will notice that there are commenters whose sole purpose seems to be to defend the orthodoxy. Andrew Bolt has DanR, for example, and Steve McIntyre at ClimateAudit had quite a few before the hollowness of their arguments coupled with Steve becoming much more legitimate in the mainstream media meant they couldn't compete at the intellectual level required to post there so they pretty much gave up.

It's clear that the organised Left is trying to make sure that no argument opposing their position gets through unchallenged, which has been exposed recently in articles on that subject, regardless of the popularity of the blog.

Hopefully, Old Fudgie has been promoted by his masters to stalk other sites that are more popular than mine, such as Jennifer Marohasy , for example.

New Fudgie - can you please ask your boss to give me a New New Fudgie if for no other reason than you give your side a bad name?

(Nothing Follows)

Up to 50% of Arctic warming caused by black carbon?

Climate Astrologers dealt with the inconvenient non-warming period from about 1940 to the mid-1970s by blaming it on atmospheric aerosols.

In order to make their models 'work' they assigned a figure to the impact of the aerosols.

How did they come up with this figure?

Did they understand the chemistry, quantity and impact of the aerosols?

No.

They simply used a figure that 'corrected' the non-warming period.

THAT is just one of the reasons that I keep pointing out that climate models are the result of massive backfitting, which statistically invalidate them and render them incapable of forecasting anywhere near accurately, as we have seen in the last decade.

A paper has just been released from NASS GISS showing that black carbon is having a significant impact on the Arctic.

An article published this week in Nature Geoscience shows that black carbon is responsible for 50 percent, or almost 1°C of the total 1.9°C increased Arctic warming from 1890 to 2007. The paper by Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space (GISS) and Greg Faluvegi of Columbia University also notes that most of the Arctic warming – 1.48°C of the 1.9°C – occurred from 1976 to 2007. The study is the first to quantify the Arctic’s sensitivity to black carbon emissions from various latitudes, and concludes that the Arctic responds strongly to black carbon emissions from the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, where the emissions and the forcing are greatest.
Black carbon is an aerosol produced from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass and is estimated to be the second or third largest contributor to climate change. Its emissions cause damage in two ways: while in the atmosphere, the dark particulates absorb sunlight and emit it as heat; when it falls back to earth it can darken snow and ice, reducing their reflectivity and accelerating melting.

Arctic warming is more than twice the observed global average surface warming of 0.78°C above pre-industrial levels. According to another study published by Lenton, et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year, this increased warming may soon lead to the disappearance of the Arctic summer ice, which would in turn accelerate Arctic warming by exposing darker heat-absorbing water now covered by heat reflecting ice. This would also increase the risk of releasing methane and other greenhouse gases from permafrost and from methane hydrates in the ocean, which could lead to a runaway feedback process.

“Climate conditions in the Arctic are rapidly deteriorating,” said Rafe Pomerance, president of Clean Air - Cool Planet. “This study reinforces the opportunity to control short-lived forcers of global warming including black carbon, methane and tropospheric ozone in order to slow the rate of warming in the Arctic. We cannot afford to allow the shrinkage of the Greenland ice sheet to accelerate.”
Because black carbon only remains in the atmosphere for several days to weeks, reducing it can bring about almost immediate mitigation of warming, whereas decreases in temperature lag reductions in CO2 by 1,000 years or more.

“We need to broaden climate policy to include reductions in black carbon, given its critical role in Arctic warming and overall global warming,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development. “Black carbon is part of a package of fast-action strategies that can achieve mitigation in the near term and slow Arctic warming, including targeting short-lived, non-CO2 climate forcers such as HFCs, methane, and tropospheric ozone, as well as increasing carbon sequestration through forest protection and production of biochar.”

There are a few comments to make here.

1. Dealing with airborne particulates is an important matter and we should be demanding that China, and other emerging markets (known as BRIC), do more to deal with air pollution.

2. The article invalidates claims that the warming in the Arctic is as predicted by climate models. This black carbon effect is not included in climate models so if they have managed to get a number close to what we see then it's the result of other faulty factors and not reality - in the same way as Hansen Scenario B claimed to be correct for a while but used inputs that did not reflect what actually happened over the period.

3. Expect to see climate astrologers recycling the aerosol argument to explain the current period of cooling that has not seen temperatures rise above those achieved in 1998.

(Nothing Follows)